Wireless technology is widely used to enable communication from and between electronic devices. Wireless connectivity allows greater mobility, convenience, and ease of use for many users. Many low-cost PC peripherals, such as keyboard and mice use one-way transmitters in the peripheral in order to reduce cost, as two-way connectivity is more expensive.
In order to allow devices to be co-located the radio frequency band is split into multiple channels; this allows multiple devices to be in the same physical space, but requires that each wireless host PC know which channel an “attached” wireless peripheral is using so that for example, a first user's keyboard does not accidentally send keystrokes to a second user's computer.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional wireless system having a peripheral device with a one-way transmitter. Conventional system 100 includes a host system 110 having a host bind button 120, and a transmit-only wireless peripheral 130 having a peripheral bind button 140. In the conventional system 100, to create a “virtual cable” connection between the conventional transmit-only wireless peripheral 130 and the wireless host 110 (in one embodiment a personal computer) the user must press a button 140 on the wireless peripheral 130 and a button 120 on or attached to the wireless host 110. The conventional wireless peripheral 130 then transmits a special pairing message on its chosen channel. The wireless host 110 scans all channels to find the pairing message from the peripheral 130 in order to determine which channel the transmitter is using. In one example of the conventional system 100, the button is attached to the wireless host 110 by a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port, a serial port, a ps2 connector, or an IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port. In another example, the button 120 on the wireless host might have to be pressed before the button 140 on the wireless peripheral. If the peripheral device fails to bind because the channel is busy, then the user just repeats the bind procedure.
The conventional pairing button method assumes that no other devices will be in the special pairing mode at the same time. Disadvantages of the conventional pairing button method include that the buttons required for this method add cost to the wireless host and the wireless peripheral. The buttons are usually placed out of the way so that they are not accidentally pressed, but this may cause customer frustration if the user cannot find the buttons when the user desires to pair the devices. In an exemplary conventional wireless keyboard device (a Micro Innovations 27 MHz keyboard) the bind button is hidden on the back of the keyboard under a leg and is so small that a pen or other sharp object is required to press the button
It would be desirable to have a solution that allows a simple binding method for one-way wireless transmitters.